Alternative grips

Key points

• Every grip opens some techniques and closes others
• A grip you cannot attack from within a few seconds is a penalty risk
• Change the grip rather than fight to keep a bad one

Step by step

Left-handed: these steps are written right-handed, as the syllabuses write them. Read every left as a right and every right as a left, and the throw is yours.

1. From the standard grip, try the high collar: take their collar behind the neck with your right hand, elbow high, which bends their posture forward.
2. Try the double lapel: both hands on their lapels, one high and one low, which controls their posture squarely but gives up the sleeve.
3. Try the cross grip: reach your right hand across to their right lapel, which turns their shoulders and opens the opposite side.
4. Try sleeve and belt: your right hand on their belt at the side, which is strong for forward throws and weak against backward ones.
5. For each grip in turn, name a throw it makes easy and a throw it makes hard.
6. Return to the standard grip between each so the difference is obvious. Remember that holding any grip without attacking draws a penalty in contest.

From the other side

A grip you have never felt before is disorienting more than dangerous. Notice what it does to your posture: a high collar bends you forward, a belt grip stops you stepping back. Answer by breaking the grip or by moving, not by standing still and enduring it.

VI judo notes

Grip changes are the part of standing judo most readily felt rather than seen, so this is a strength rather than a gap. Name each grip aloud when drilling it with a partner, so the feel and the name are learned together.